ABSTRACT

This chapter begins with a presentation of the process flows designed for planar optical photonic crystal (PhC) structures. Following this, the optical lithography (OL) process is introduced to initiate and explain the strategies taken to push the lithographic process beyond its conventional limits while keeping photomask fabrication cost and system simulation time cost low. With this foundation, the lithographic experiment setup is presented and discussed to enable further presentations of the details involved to achieve highresolution PhC patterning. Here, rigorous design of experiments yielded necessary PhCs devices with precise lattice dimensions even near regions of “defect structures” designed for device operations.